“Hospice.”
Once the word is uttered aloud, there is a seismic shift. You will feel it.
Like a (very short) thread through the eye of a needle, swiftly in and swiftly out.
The air itself becomes thin, steely.
At the periphery of your vision, an immediate dimming. The penumbra begins to shrink. In time, it will become a tunnel. Ever diminishing. Until the remaining light is small enough to be cupped in two hands. And then it will be extinguished.
Flash fiction by Joyce Carol Oates. —The New Yorker
This actually happened the other day when I was offline.
Modular low-poly medieval buildings. Ground-level storefronts have more detail than the upper storey windows and…
I get a little workplace gift as the academic year closes.
At the airport, sending the daughter off to Ireland. She: “Use that one, because we…